I had planned to be in bed by ten o'clock last night to listen to the ABC's Late Night Live, but instead I stayed on in the warm library reading "D.H. Lawrence at Thirroul" by Joseph Davis until well past Late Night Live and I am now feeling more dead than alive.
The book is about D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda living at Thirroul, some 200 kilometres north of here, during the winter of 1922. There they rented Wyewurk, a holiday bungalow which overlooked the sea, although Lawrence wasn't simply on holidays: he was there to write his great Australian novel, "Kangaroo", in less than six weeks. The book tells the story of how "Kangaroo" was written, of the historic house Wyewurk and of the township of Thirroul, which was then a mining town and a key to understanding an important creative period in Lawrence's life.
It's been a while since I read my battered old copy, but I still remember its first chapter heading "Torestin" which left me wondering, as it did Richard Lovat Somers, the novel's semi-autobiographical protagonist (based on D.H. Lawrence himself), as to its meaning. It then dawned on me - and him - that it meant "To rest in" and harks back to a time when Australians gave their houses quirky, humorous, or often literal names.
Think of the most famous classic Australian house name of that era, "Emoh Ruo", which was simply "Our Home" spelled backwards. Or "Dun Roamin", a classic pun expressing that the owners are "done roamin'" and have settled down. A cheeky way of saying the modest house or block was quite enough for the owners used to be "Thislldome" (or This'll do me), while "Linga Longa" needed no explanation at all.
Remembering those humorous house names takes me back to a better, a gentler time in Australia, as does watching the movie that was made of D.H. Lawrence's novel. It's a wonderfully relaxing start to another wonderfully relaxing day at "Riverbend" which was already known by that name when I bought it. If not, I would've named it "Dun Roamin'".
